


The Bridge Of Worlds

by SaltySadness



Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 10:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltySadness/pseuds/SaltySadness
Summary: The Infinite is a land between the living, dead, and make believe. When it's been abandoned and ignored for years, it turns cold and deadly. But when the fated one passes through unintentionally, what happens next is beyond them.





	1. Prologue

Many long years ago, a young man created the Infinite, a place between reality and illusion, between life and death. It was a place where the living, dead, and make believe could live and talk and thrive peacefully. But, that man was the bridge. He decided who and what came through to each world. One day, the man disappeared. He was nowhere to be found in any of the three worlds. Soon, those trapped in the Infinite grew resentful. The living forgot of the magical world, and continued with life. The dead stopped caring. 

But, the man had a family in the realm of the living. As years, decades, started to pass the family realized something. Every few generations, someone was born with the ability to cross to the new world. But, they had to use much energy to take someone over to the Infinite, so they usually went alone. The Infinte had turned into a cold, deadly place filled with horrifying monsters and twisted entities. The person had to be careful how far they went, how long they were gone. For as long as they were in the other world, the bridge was open for these creatures to pass through. And even if they were gone for a short period, they had to beware because there were entities that could cross with them. Dark creatures with cruel intentions. And only the person who crossed can see them. While they have less power in the land of the living, these creatures can torment someone and posess them, giving them the strength they need to cause havoc. 

The family soon decided that they should stop crossing over. The member of the family that could cross was told they were crazy, cast aside and ignored. As centuries passed, the family had completely forgotten of this special ability, and the gift seemed to have stopped. Until one fateful day...

\----

The date was April 13, 1999. A young girl was born with the name of Victoria Oborn. As she began to grow it became blatant that she was special. Her family took her to many doctors and psychiatrists and psychologists. They all said the same thing about her. They had settled on the assumption she had Schizophrenia. The girl's family tried to help to the best of their ability, but it was no use. They tried to give her a normal life. But it was no use. Nothing helped. She would always see things that weren't there. As a toddler it was brushed off as imaginary friends, until she was asked what her "friends" looked like. Some of the descriptions were truly horrifying to the poor girl's parents. 

One day the girl suddenly stopped. She stopped talking about them. She stopped talking about the dreams she had, the things she saw. Victoria figured that if she could ignore the things long enough they'd go away. And they did, for a short while. Victoria gained a semi normal life, with friends and relieved family members. She herself was relieved. But, she still saw them in her dreams. The dreams never went away. She thought it was all in her head. 

The dreams consisted of a land, a land that she had never seen before. There was a forest, a dead one. It went on forever it seemed. So did the still lake across from the forest. In the distance, there always was a town on the horizon. But, every time she walked a little farther, a voice told her to turn back. She could tell, this land had once been so beautiful and extravagant and enjoyable. But all she could see now was a dull, cold remainder of what once was true beauty. One dream, she didn't listen to the voice, and tried to get to the village. No matter how far she ran, she it was always just barely in her field of view. As soon as she thought she was almost there, Victoria felt something cold. It weighed her down immensely, and every step forward caused more pressure to be applied. She gave up, turning back. But despite the weight being lifted, she still felt the dark force on her. It surrounded her, making her feel things she didn't want to. Anger, despair, hopelessness. It felt as if a thousand voices were crying out, begging for them to be freed. She covered her ears and ran back to the place she had started. 

After that specific dream, she never disobeyed the voice. But, in the real world, she still felt that presence every now and then. It clawed at her, whispering. She ignored it, but sometimes it was too heavy to ignore...


	2. A Semi-Normal Life

As fast as she ran, she couldn't escape the voices. The horrible begging voices. They screamed at her, invisible arms trying to hold her back, scratching her arms to the point they were red and bloody. The forest didn't seem to end, no matter how far she sprinted. Deeper and deeper, until she saw a clearing....

Beep, beep, beep. The alarm went off and Victoria leaped upwards. Her eyes shot around the room as she slowly calmed herself. It's a dream, it wasn't real, She thought to herself. The girl crawled out of bed, stretching her arms. Her body was sore. It was obvious she must have been thrashing all night long. She noticed several marks on arm, but brushed it off as her accidentally hurting herself while she slept. Victoria looked at the clock, it was 6:10. Time for her to get ready for school. She changed into a pair of jeans and a clean shirt with a faded NASA logo on it. She brushed her short, messy hair quickly. Victoria passed by the mirror quickly and glanced at her reflection before continuing on her way downstairs. She made herself cereal and sat down at the table, checking her phone to see if she had any new messages. None currently. She soon finished her routine of preparing for school and grabbed her book bag. And out the door she went.

She leaned her head against the window on the bus, staring out at the world around her. Victoria felt a presence next to her. She turned to see who it was, only for her to be greeted by a small childlike figure. The child had short strawberry blond hair and grey eyes. Victoria mumbled to herself, turning back around. She automatically assumed that this was another hallucination. The child stared at his own lap. When the bus pulled up the to school, the boy was gone. Victoria assumed her guess was correct then.

As she walked to her locker, Victoria looked around to see that her friend Charley was next to her. Charley Buis was a shorter kid with brown eyes and a black haired, half shaved head. She had a thin frame, but had a bit more muscle than normal. Charley had a pragmatic outlook on life and often Victoria when to her for advice due to her calm and wise personality. She had moved to the town a few years back from Kentucky. Victoria jumped as Charley grinned. "Did I scare ya?" Victoria gave a short glare. "Of course!" She snapped at her. Charley stepped back. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Did it happen again?" Yep, Charley was the only one who knew about Victoria's mental problems. Victoria nodded, with a frown on her face. Charley had a serious expression on. "Dude, you've gotta tell someone soon. It ain't healthy for ya." Victoria shook her head quickly. "It's not a good idea, they'll be worried and I'll have to start that process again-"

"I don't give a damn about that nonsense! Ya have to take care of yourself Vic."

"Charley, cmon. You know that's not as important as you think."

"Like hell it ain't! I don't give a shit about-"

A voice stopped them. "Miss Buis, Miss Victoria. I hope I'm not interrupting something important. I would like to remind you there is a rule against swearing Miss Buis." Charley growled quietly. "Sorry Mrs. Rita."

"I'm afraid 'sorry' isn't going to cut it. Detention this afternoon." Mrs. Rita managed her way to her classroom. She was a younger woman who had recently started working at the school. Charley watched her. "Sometimes I wish she was a hallucination too, cause then I wouldn't have to go to her science class." Victoria rolled her eyes. "Cmon, it's time for first period." They walked off together in silence.


	3. Who is This?

After the first two periods, it was time for Victoria to go to Mrs Rita's class. She grumbled to herself slightly, and plopped down at her desk in the middle of the room. The class was slowly filing in. An annoying boy named Jacob sat next to her. Often, Victoria ignored him. Sometimes she'd sass off to him. Only when she was okay with getting in trouble for "being rude". The lesson droned on and on, it was about the scientific method. Victoria scribbled the things she saw in her dreams in the corner of her notes. Jacob glanced over her shoulder at it. "What's that?" She glanced and him and moved her arm in the way, moving the notebook away from him. He scooched over and tried to look again. Victoria pushed the notebook farther away. Jacob craned his neck to see, and unintentionally fell out of his seat. Mrs Rita's head snapped up from the lesson book. "Mr Degray, I hope you're not having a problem." Jacob's face flushed pink, and he looked embarrassed and angry. "No ma'am." He got back in his seat and send a glare to Victoria. She smiled to herself. 

As soon as class was over she zoomed to her locker. Victoria opened her door and immediately took a step back, startled. There was a shadow hand trying to grab her ankle. It disappeared almost immediately. Nobody around her seemed fazed. She reached into her locker and got her stuff and then went to her next class. 

The rest of the day went by without any abnormal occurrences. Victoria hung out with her friends at lunch, and the rest of the classes were the same as always. The bell rang, and Victoria walked to the bus. Her friends were confused and teased her about why she didn't drive a car. Only Charley knew it was because she was afraid if she saw something while driving she could cause a car accident. So Victoria was planning on driving any time soon. She threw her bag on a random seat and sat next to it. 

Victoria opened the door and walked inside. She didn't bother to try to greet her parents because they were mainly busy now that she was 'cured'. She immediately got out her homework and focused on it. Her phone buzzed. She picked it up and checked her messages. It was Charley. **How do you feel?** Victoria smiled and responded. **I'm fine Char, I'm doing homework. You should doing yours too.** She turned off her phone and worked on her homework.

It was 9 by the time she was done and the girl stretched her back. Her phone buzzed, and she naturally assumed it was Charley. She got ready to text her friend that she need to stop being a such a worrier. She froze once she saw what the text read. **Who do think you are?** Victoria immediately shut off her phone. Her phone buzzed some more, and she didn't look at them. This was creepy, some stranger texting her. It sounded like a threat too, which wasn't good. She peaked at her phone, and her face paled at the messages. 

**You think you're so damn clever, don't you?**

**Hiding amongst the living to escape us?**

**How fucking dare you abandon us you unworthy brat.**

Veronica quickly texted back. **You have the wrong number.** Her face turned even paler at the response. **We know who you are Victoria Oborn. You can't hide from us.**

Never in her life has Victoria blocked a number so fast. Her heart was racing. She locked her window and put up her blinds. She acted like a small child, checking under her bed and in her closet for monsters. But this time the monsters could be real. That's what truly terrified the poor girl. She soon calmed herself, and managed to call Charley. But, all she heard was static the first few times. Charley eventually picked up and when Victoria told Charley she flipped out. "Call the damn police, not me!" Victoria sighed. "It's not...I have a feeling the problem might get worse if I do that." Charley could be heard sighing on the other end. "Whatever then, can we talk about this in the morning? It's 10 at night for Christ's sake. Even a country girl's gotta get her beauty sleep." Victoria laughed and hung up. That made her feel a little better. Still, she couldn't sleep for a majority of the night. When she did, all she could see were the grotesque disfigured creatures surrounding her, but this time instead of just begging, some of the yells were like the angry messages. About how she had betrayed them. Obviously, poor Victoria didn't sleep well that night.


	4. What's Happening?

Victoria didn't sleep any better that night. She got up, and noticed she was late for school. Victoria jumped up and quickly got ready. She had missed the bus, and had to run to school. Perfect start... she thought to herself. She had already missed first period by the time she got to school. Well, she had missed the first half and didn't want to be lectured. So she hung out in the girl's bathroom until the bell rang. So far, she hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. That had to be a prank text, someone was just playing a practical joke on me. That unfortunately didn't end her paranoia and she was jumpy the rest of the day. Charley wasn't at school, and there was a sub for Ms Rita. Then again, Charley was always skipping school so that wasn't too big of a deal. Ms Rita she couldn't care less about. Victoria carried on through her day like normal. 

As she made her way home, Victoria noticed someone following her. She turned to face them and saw Charley. "Heya Vic." Victoria frowned at her. "Charley? What the hell? Why are you following me? Why weren't you at school?!" 

"Eh, sorry. Ma wouldn't let me go anywhere without a lecture since I got detention again. Technically I'm not supposed to be here right now." 

"Then....why are you here?" 

"I wanna see your world." 

"...What?" 

"Y'know, that world in your head. I was reading about how some people can bring others into their brain with psychic abilities and shit." 

"You do realize none of that is true...right?"

"Cmon, we can at least try!" 

Victoria sighed. "Alright, fine then. We will try to go into my mind. Even though that's a lot of bull we will try." 

"Thanks Vic. And hey, I give you the right to say 'I told you so' if it fails." 

They both walked to Victoria's house and started to prepare for what they were doing.

\---------------------- 

As they walked closer to home, Victoria noticed something off about Charley. The makeup she wore was smeared, and she was breathing heavily. Normally, that wouldn't bother her because that's how Charley looked after gym most of the time. But for some reason, she had a look of fear in her eyes. Her lips were pressed together to form a thin line, and she was silent nearly the entire walk up to this point. Victoria's face fell into a frown. "You okay, Charley? You seem off..." 

"I'm FINE." Charley snapped, her eyes darting around cautiously. 

Victoria took a step away. "You're scaring me, what's going on?" 

"Can we not talk about this now? It's not...safe." 

"What? 'It's not safe'? The hell does that mean Charley?!" Victoria noticed color drain from Charley's face, as she glanced behind Victoria. Before Victoria could turn, Charley had gripped her arm and taken off, practically dragging Victoria from behind. Victoria glanced back, and her eyes widened. She yelled at Charley to stop, becoming more and more confused. When suddenly...

Victoria couldn't comprehend what happened after that. The last things she recalled were them running from something, and suddenly the screeching of car brakes, and blood. Lots of gore. Not hers, Charley's. She had been so panicked, the girl didn't notice what was going on around her. Victoria was hit as well, but she merely had a broken arm and a concussion. Charley had taken the most of the hit and was in the hospital. Unconscious. For a week. For a month. For two months. It was unclear if she was going to wake up. Even after being released from a hospital, Victoria was in a daze. Life blurred by, and she wasn't thinking of the present. It was like she wasn't there in the slightest. All she could think of was that small glance she got of what was behind her.

It was the child, the one on the bus. But, this time he had grotesque features. Blood was dripping out of his little mouth, down the front of his shirt and was There were hand marks on his throat that matched the size of his own hands, as if he had been squeezing his own throat. The worst was the boy had a glassy stare, his grey eyes faded. His blond hair had splatters and streaks of blood. His palms had more gore spread across the surface of his skin. His little body was twisted in an unnatural way, and he was far too skinny to be alive, which was clear from the baggy clothes and bones sticking through his deathly pale skin. The boy had been staring at at Charley and Victoria, emotionless. He mouthed something when Victoria looked. 

_It's all your fault._


	5. How?

_She could hear her. Screaming. Begging for her to be saved. The thing had her. The thing that caused the darkness to appear. The thing that didn't stop until it had what it wanted. No matter what, she couldn't save her. The Thing's minions clawed at her throat, her face, her eyes. The darkness swirled around her, she couldn't breathe.Their hands almost touched, before she was torn away from Victoria's grip. She was unable to save her from the Thing._

Victoria threw herself up, in a cold sweat. She was panting. Her face stung, and she clung to the sheets tightly. It had felt too real. As she placed a hand on her face, the girl flinched. She tiptoed to the bathroom and looked at her face. It startled her, for her face was covered in red marks. Her neck looked as if something was trying to rip her throat out. She shivered, trying to get the screams of her best friend out of her head. The Thing was something she had seen for many years. It often whispered that it would one day take away everyone she cared about, one by one. She shook her head, and did something she hadn't done for a long, long time. She decided to talk to someone. Someone that wasn't Charley. 

The next day, during lunch, she went to Mrs. Rita. As she strolled into the room, the teacher looked up.

"Ma'am, can I...talk to you?" 

"Hm? About what?" 

"The..you know..." 

Mrs. Rita nodded, "Ah, what is it do you wish to talk about exactly?"

"I'm just, well, a little freaked out and.." 

"And?"

"And scared. I don't want to lose my best friend."

Mrs. Rita nodded. "Why don't you go to the school nurse? The guidance counselor might be there." 

Victoria sighed and left. But instead of heading to the nurse, she left all together. She decided that the people here couldn't help her. She was done playing games. Mrs Rita couldn't care more or less about her, and honestly that was enough for Victoria. She was going to the other world. The one Charley was in. 

\-----

 

**_Victoria cried out. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Her eyes were gone, replaced with empty sockets and her hands were clawed and decayed. Her clothes hung in tatters around her, her neck torn open wide. Her mouth was a bloody mess. She was mute, except for the choking and gurgling sounds she made as she tried to speak. Blood gushed from her sockets, her throat, her mouth. She couldn’t feel anything properly, not physically or emotionally. All there was, was the pain. The burning feeling as her chilling hands gripped around her broken body. She couldn’t see, but definitely felt bones sticking out of her legs. Her chest hurt too much to touch, mainly around her ribcage. The only warmth she felt was the red fluid pouring from her. It didn’t stop, she waited and waited, begging for the blood and pain and suffering to end. But it never did. She just waited for it, crying out in her groans and sobs, for eternity._ **

 

Victoria sat up, she had dozed off after hours of reading through the internet about ‘another world’. All that came up was stupid conspiracies and sci-fi books. Nothing of importantance. She even had went through her own books, her parents books, and had asked her extended family if they had any books on the subject. None did. There were two places she had left to look, the attic and her friends’ houses. Victoria went to the attic first, knowing it would seem odd for her to randomly show up, clearly desperate to find something, at a friend’s house. Up the attic stairs she crept, silence filling the house.

She had no idea why she was silent, her family had gone out and it wasn’t even that late, but she felt it was necessary. Her grandparents’ things were up here, as were their urns. Out of respect for their quiet ways while living, she too was hushed. Her grandmother was the reader out of the pair, so her items were searched first but had nothing of the subject. Or at least, not at it first seemed. Victoria noticed a small book with the title “The Infinite” scrawled, clearly handwritten. She frowned, wondering what that meant. Then she noticed more books with the same words written on her grandfather’s side of the books. Odd. She lifted them up and carried them to her room. If they weren’t important, they would be good fillers for the time as they were handwritten stories that looked older than her grandparents. Victoria opened one, noticing the stains of age along the pages. One of the stories was too water damaged to read unfortunately, so she put it back. One oddly enough looked burnt, but was still able to be read. But she read the oldest looking one first, the one that looked like it was going to crumble with age before she finished. At first, it confused her. “A prophesied bridge connected three worlds. Death, life, and in between. Only when the Bridge realizes how to open the gates may they pass through with others. The Bridge can be passed along a family, taking many generations to finally appear. This one person can release souls stuck in the Infinite, or the middle world, to either the living or the dead, wherever they belong. But if they seal the gates before they die, souls will be trapped in the Infinite without peace.” 

Victoria frowned, finishing all the books. It sounded so stupid, but so similar to herself. “Bridges may accidentally cross over while sleeping or see into the other world in the middle of day. While sleeping, they can see future or current events in the other world clearly, very rarely though can they see the past unless they choose to with great skill. Durning the day however, the other world may appear as a strange figure unseen to others.” The line about the ‘future and current events’ worried her greatly. Did that mean that the dream she so recently had would be her fate? That looked horrifying. She wondered if it would be worth it to do this...


	6. The Village

Victoria flipped through the old pages. She was searching for a way to get across to the other world. There had to be something here that could help. She glanced at the water damaged one after some time finding nothing. “Oh fuck-“ she cursed out loud. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” She opened the book carefully and tried to make out what it said. It was hardly understandable, and she gave up after the first chapter. Even the parts that weren’t smeared beyond recognition were unintelligible nonsense. She sighed, relaxing on her bed.

Victoria dozed off slowly, before nearly throwing herself up as she heard a wail. A child’s wail. It was close, too close to be coming from anywhere except in the house. The girl got up slowly and moved to her door, glancing at the empty hallway. She said nothing, and quickly turned to manage her way out her window. No way in hell was she going to walk through the house when someone was clearly there. Except, there it was. The small child was the same one she had been seeing, but as bloody as the last time. “You didn’t listen.” It cried, and Victoria wondered how the neighbors didn’t hear until she remembered it was a hallucination. “You’re not real. G-Go away.” She tried to sound brave but her voice faltered. “I’m warning you.” The child stared as if unamused. Suddenly, it’s blood-soaked hands grabbed Victoria’s arm in a grip too strong for the form. This was real, Victoria realized with one horrifying thought. 

The creature, not human, somehow pulled her out her window and dropped to the ground, dragging her at a supernatural pace towards the lake nearby. She screamed and twisted in its grasp, grabbing anything she could lift to hit it, but it remained intact, the items phasing through its body. Each time something when through, the body cracked, and little bits of it’s true form could be seen.

Victoria grabbed onto something attached to the ground, but had to let go in an effort not to have her arm ripped away from her body. Soon enough the monster had pulled her to the water’s edge, where it let go. She glanced in confusion, when suddenly the demonic child grabbed her once more and pulled her into the water, and glided to the deeper end. Victoria had more terrified thoughts as the child dragged her under the water, as she blacked out. 

 

And then she woke up.

\-----

Victoria woke where she normally does in her dreams. Between the forest and the lake, with the town on the horizon. But...this was different. She could feel the long blades of grass touching her legs, and she wasn't in her regular clothes anymore. She was wearing a dress, one that reached just barely above her knees. It was a dull blue color, and the fabric was scratchy. The sleeves cut off just where the elbow bent. Victoria stood, noting that she was wearing boots made from some sort of leathery material, and the fact that the dress was rather loose on her. Her hair wasn't as messy as she would assume, which confused Victoria. A small wind shifted the grass around her, causing her to shiver a little. It appears the dress was thin as well. Victoria stared towards the village. "Well...lets hope this doesn't end like the last time..." 

As she trudged on, Victoria frowned at how dry the ground was. How did the grass grow here, it looked as if it hadn't rained in years? Victoria kept moving forward though, not allowing this odd occurrence to hold her back. She was glad that, for once, she didn't have that eerie voice chanting in the back of her head like normal. It didn't even seem to take long to get to the village, which made her curious seeing as it looked so far from where she started. The town was deserted. She walked down the empty street, which held abandoned market booths and dusty barrels. Her footsteps echoed off the lonesome houses, signalling that nothing lived here. At least not in this section. 

The corner she turned down held a similar story. But, Victoria could feel eyes watching her as she slowly stepped down the paved road. "Who's there? I can tell you're there. I'm looking for my friend. Maybe you can help me?" She called into the emptiness. After waiting a few moments, the sound of footsteps scurrying came from behind. Victoria spun, showing the small child she had seen so many times before. "You.. you're actually here." He squeaked. "You heard us, and actually came..." Victoria watched him in surprise. He crossed his arms, looking away. "You need to see Axel.. he's been waiting."


End file.
